


strange eyes fill strange rooms

by Lise



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Canon Compliant, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Outsider, Thor (2011) - Freeform, Volstagg POV, Volstagg is a good dude, it's sad but mostly only because you know what's going on, there's a lot of dramatic irony in this story, which is to say a non-Odinfamily POV of Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 13:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10765590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: So everything on Jotunheim went rapidly downhill, and now something seems to be wrong with Loki. It seems no one can quite figure out what, though.





	strange eyes fill strange rooms

**Author's Note:**

> Another old fic I'm crossposting now - scarletceylon gave me the prompt for Warriors Three POV fic set during the events of the _Thor_ movie and I went "oooooh" and sat down and wrote...this. I have, like, a weird quantity of Volstagg feelings for the amount of canon we actually have about him, and a weird amount of headcanons about his particular relationship with Loki. (I've thought a lot about all of the W3's relationships with Loki, because that's just who I am.)
> 
> Also I just love writing fic with heaping spoonfuls of dramatic irony that makes everything sadder, so there's that.

Volstagg chewed on the thought for a long time before he spoke it, waiting for a day that was just him, Hogun, Fandral and Sif.

“Has anyone noticed that Loki seems a bit odd, lately?” He asked.

“Loki is always a bit odd,” Fandral said, and then laughed at his own joke.

“What do you mean?” Sif asked. “Odd how?” 

Volstagg shook his head. “I cannot quite put my finger on it. Just something…well. Odd.” 

“He has seemed happier to me, if anything,” Hogun said with a shrug. “Is that what seems odd?”

“Loki has been a bit melancholic for the past years,” Fandral said.  

Volstagg frowned. “Perhaps that is it,” he said, though he didn’t think it was. 

Sif shook her head. “Don’t you have enough children to worry about?” She said.

“Apparently not, as I’ve adopted at least three more,” Volstagg said, and in the ensuing scuffle the matter was forgotten. 

* * *

Or at least, forgotten until he emerged from the healing halls to the news that the All-Father had banished Thor to Midgard and no one seemed to know where Loki was. 

With Fandral still in the healing rooms and Hogun staying with him, Volstagg turned to Sif. “Where do you think Loki is?” 

“Why are you asking me?” Sif said, a little waspish. Volstagg knew her well enough to recognize it as worry, though. 

“You were here to ask,” he said. She frowned at him, and Volstagg went on, “do you not think we should find him? His brother was just _banished,_ and you know how he gets, slinking off to hide instead of seeking out friends…”

“Something smells wrong about all of this, Volstagg,” Sif said, turning to him. “Can you not sense it? Everything feels…” She trailed off, and shook her head. “I need to go smash something.” 

Which left him to look for Loki on his own. He did not have any luck at it, which was not terribly surprising. Volstagg asked a few of the servants, but none of them seemed to have seen him either. He did find a maid who claimed Loki had ordered a large quantity of ice brought to his chambers, but when Volstagg knocked at his door no one answered, and he could hear nothing inside.

Loki wasn’t there when they gathered that evening, either - at least not at first. Then he was, but Volstagg hadn’t seen or heard him come in. He noted that Loki looked pale and drawn, almost as though he’d been ill, but his expression was still, masklike. 

Sif and Fandral were arguing. “What do you suggest we do, Sif?” Fandral demanded. “Go charging off after Thor? Because that went so well this time-”

Sif flushed. “That was as much our fault as Thor’s! We might have refused and did not-”

“Loki,” said Hogun, cutting across their bickering. Both Sif and Fandral fell silent and turned toward him. 

“You’ll go to Odin,” Sif said. It wasn’t a question - almost an order. “Get him to change his mind.”

“I will?” Loki said. 

Sif blinked. “Were you planning to leave him there?” 

Loki shrugged. “You will recall that I argued against our going to Jotunheim from the beginning.” 

“Is that your response to your brother’s banishment?” Sif asked. “To say _I told you so-”_

“My _brother_ ignored an order from the Allfather, undermined his authority, and quite possibly restarted the war with Jotunheim,” Loki snapped, his voice rising sharply. “I am _aware_ of the situation. We should never have been there at all-”

“You came with us,” Fandral said, accusatory. Loki’s nostrils flared. 

“I told one of the guards before we left! I _tried_ to stall us on the Bifrost and I tried to get you to leave, but Thor could not hold his pride for one minute-”

“If you cared about Thor at all,” Sif said, her own voice sharp, and Volstagg frowned. 

“Now, Sif,” he said, but Loki spoke over him.

“I love Thor more dearly than _any_ of you,” he said, and there was something strange, harsh and raw, in the way he spoke. “But I can see him for what he is, too, and I know that his reign would be a _disaster._ If nothing else, today’s events should make that clear to the rest of you as well.” 

He turned on his heel and went out. Volstagg frowned after him, some instinct gnawing at his stomach. 

“What’s biting in his trousers,” Fandral said, clearly trying for humor. Sif looked like she was fuming. 

“Laufey said,” Hogun said quietly, “there are traitors in the house of Odin.”

Fandral looked shocked. “You don’t think - not _Loki.”_

“Someone let the Jotnar into the vault,” Sif said. Volstagg looked back and forth between them. 

“Loki’s always been odd, true, but he is not a _traitor_ ,” he said. “Surely there is some other explanation.”

* * *

It was Sif’s idea to approach the All-Father directly, to propose that Thor be brought home. When they entered the Great Hall, however, it was not Odin sitting on the Hlidskjalf. 

It was Loki.

Odin was in the Odinsleep, he said. The throne was his. Volstagg felt a bit as though the rug had been yanked from beneath his feet. First Thor, now the All-Father himself…

And then there was Sif, all but accusing Loki of treason, or plotting against Thor. Like to get them all arrested - probably would have, if Loki were not their friend.

But even Loki himself…

“Loki seemed…strange,” he told Hildegund, holding her close that night. “Not like himself. Cold, and distant.”

“He is a young man who has just unexpectedly been made regent, with his brother gone and his father in the Sleep,” Hildegund pointed out. “Perhaps that is it?”

Volstagg considered that. “It did not seem like nervousness,” he said. “Or uncertainty. The opposite, really, like he’d made up his mind to do something. And it’s hardly as though I can just ask Asgard’s King what he is up to.” 

“Perhaps you should,” Hildegund said. “Loki might appreciate the reminder that he has friends.”

Volstagg sighed. “My love…I do not think that is it. In truth, I think something has been wrong with him for some time. Some disquiet or distemper, and I do not know the source.”

“Ah, my great-hearted husband,” Hildegund said. “There is only so much you can do, you know. I’ll wager this all settles itself out soon.”

“I certainly hope that it might, o wisest of wives,” Volstagg said, and did not know how to say to her that he did not think he had done anything. Loki had his moods just as Thor had his tempers and Fandral had his romantic exploits. It was not something to be fussed over, nor would Loki thank them if they did. 

But Volstagg was certain that something was different, somehow. That he, that _they,_ had missed some change, and now Loki was…not himself, in some indefinable way. He wracked his brain, trying to think what might have happened, but he could come up with nothing.

Perhaps Sif was right. They needed to get Thor back. With him back, everything would turn right.

* * *

On his way to meet with the others to discuss their course of action, Volstagg found Loki in the gardens. Ran into him, really, while he was cutting through: Loki was pacing back and forth like a caged wolf and muttering something to himself under his breath. Gungnir was nowhere to be seen, and he seemed not to hear Volstagg approaching at all. 

“Loki?” He said cautiously, and Loki whirled as if he expected an attacker. Nor did his posture ease much with recognition. 

“Volstagg,” he said, almost curt.

He remembered belatedly, bowing formally. “That is - Your Majesty.” Loki barked an odd, sharp laugh without a trace of amusement, his eyes swinging away from Volstagg. 

“Is it?” he said, somewhat nonsensically, and before Volstagg could respond added, “I wish to be alone. Go, Volstagg the _Valiant.”_ There was a strange edge to Loki’s voice - different from even the crueler of his mockeries. This was almost vicious. 

Volstagg hesitated. “Your Majesty…”

“Do not stand on title,” Loki interrupted. “I know how it must stick in your throat.” Volstagg blinked, startled by both the bitterness and the truth of those words. It did feel - strange, wrong, to address Loki by that title. Though why should it? Volstagg scolded himself. After all, after Thor…

He remembered what Sif had insinuated. _The House of Odin is full of traitors._ Volstagg did not want to believe, but when he looked at Loki of late…

Perhaps there was some explanation. Some _reason,_ unexpected trickery that none of them could see. Laufey might have been lying. “Loki, then,” Volstagg said, carefully. “Is there…is something amiss? More than this with Thor, and the All-Father, I mean. I ask you as a friend.” 

Loki looked at Volstagg. His eyes were shadowed. “As a friend,” he echoed. Volstagg tried not to shift uneasily. 

“Yes,” he said. “I - all of us, we care for you. Truly.”

“Truly,” Loki echoed again. He half closed his eyes, the rest of his face immobile. “Sif suspects me of treason. She believes I have usurped Thor’s place. Perhaps that I plot to do worse.” Volstagg tried not to start, though he supposed he should not be surprised. Loki had always known things he should not have. But if he knew…what they had been discussing itself bordered on treason. He swallowed nervously. 

“Sif is…distressed,” Volstagg said. “As are we all. We are gathering, in fact - if you would join our company, perhaps explain…”

Volstagg trailed off. Something had shifted minutely in Loki’s expression. He could not have said what it was, only that it made his heart go cold and he knew he had said the wrong thing. “No,” Loki said. “I think not.” 

“Then perhaps you could tell me-”

“I owe you no explanations,” Loki said, and there was another new tone, sharp and vibrating with _fury. “None_ of you. As though you _deserve_ to know my mind. I know what you want of me, and I will not give it. Thor is an exile and an exile he will stay.” 

Volstagg shook his head. “That is not why I asked!” 

“No,” Loki said, the fury mutating as quickly as it had come to disgust. “You asked because, like Sif, you suspect me. You are fortunate I am disinclined to arrest any of you for words alone.” His lips quirked, humorlessly. “I have more important things to do.”

“Loki,” Volstagg said, suddenly urgent. “If there is something wrong with you, perhaps we can help.” 

“Have you not heard? There is _always_ something wrong with me,” Loki said, light and bitter, his smile cold and brittle as ice, chilling Volstagg to the bone. He nearly shivered. 

A moment later the expression was gone and Loki turned away, his shoulders dropping, seeming inexpressibly weary. “Go home, Volstagg,” he said. “Go to your wife, and your children. Embrace them and eat a warm dinner with your family.” 

His neck almost ached from being whipped about by Loki’s moods, seemingly even more volatile than usual. “What?” 

“Words of advice.” Loki rubbed at his left palm in a strange nervous gesture. “One never knows how quickly things can fall apart.”

Volstagg opened his mouth, though he was not sure how to answer, but Loki had already vanished. He stared at the empty place he had been. 

Loki was going mad. That was the only explanation that made sense. Whether it was the stress of the last couple days, or something else…whether he had brought the frost giants into Asgard or not (and if he had, perhaps that was a part of his madness, too), it was clear they needed Thor now more than ever. Perhaps his brother’s return would bring back Loki’s senses. Or at the very least he could take the throne while Loki mended. 

It was for everyone’s good to bring Thor home. 

Loki’s, too.


End file.
